Biden team plans meeting with governors to shore up support
The White House is discussing holding a meeting with Democratic governors on Wednesday and inviting President Biden to travel to the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania this week, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Biden and his advisers are trying to shore up support and put his disastrous performance in the debates behind him.
The meeting on Wednesday would include governors attending in person at the White House and virtually, according to one of the two people and another person briefed on the planning. It would come two days after the governors, who have been among Biden’s staunchest supporters during his presidency but whose ranks also include his potential replacements, held their own virtual meeting on Monday.
Several of those governors expressed frustration with the current circumstances — and the lack of direct contact with Mr. Biden — during their Monday call, according to a person with knowledge of what happened. That meeting lasted about an hour and did not involve any staff. Some of the elected officials who have supported Mr. Biden have privately complained that he is being kept in a kind of bubble, one that exacerbates current concerns about the situation Democrats find themselves in.
Mr. Biden’s advisers are discussing a possible trip to Wisconsin on Friday and a trip to Pennsylvania on Sunday, one of the people briefed on the matter said. Pennsylvania in particular is one of Mr. Biden’s top swing states in polls.
The president’s advisers have been urged by some allies to make him more visible after the debate. He held an event in North Carolina on Friday, but aside from fundraising appearances, he did not hold another public event until Monday night, when he commented on the Supreme Court’s decision to grant former President Donald J. Trump partial criminal immunity. The president made the statement more than nine hours after it was made public, and he did not take questions from reporters.
The White House has repeatedly deployed a handful of Democratic governors as surrogates to represent Mr. Biden and to answer questions about his age, which have exploded since Mr. Biden delivered a halting, whispering performance on the debate stage against his predecessor and challenger, Mr. Trump.
At the same time, some of those governors — a group of officials who are younger and tested by the pandemic — are now routinely being mentioned as possible successors to Biden should he decide not to run as the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2024, however unlikely that idea may seem to his closest supporters right now.
